Australian peace keeping troops collect machetes and other hand weapons from detain militiamen allied to feuding branches of Timor's army or police in the East Timor capital of Dili May 27, 2006.[Reuters]

Defense Minister Brendan Nelson said the officers would likely be dispatched within the next 24 hours to help quell rising lawlessness on the streets of Dili.

The police reinforcements will join 15 officers already in the capital, he said.

Nelson said the presence of Australian troops, helicopters and armored personnel carriers on the troubled island had so far helped to ease tensions between East Timor's military and rebel factions.

"We've seen an immediate calming in terms of the rogue military elements and the police in the most savage way fighting with one another," Nelson told Australia's Network Ten television Sunday. "What's now emerging is a basic sense of lawlessness with these marauding young gangs."

Around 2,000 Australian troops were either on the ground or in transit to East Timor, the defense department said in a statement Sunday. Seven ships and four Black Hawk helicopters were also assisting the deployment, the department said.

Prime Minister John Howard said the full contingent of Australian troops would be on the ground in East Timor Sunday, but warned that stabilizing the country was a complicated operation that could take some time.

"It has begun to quiet things down, it's a trickier operation than some people think," Howard told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday. "Nobody should assume that it's just a simple walk-in-the-park military operation _ it's quite challenging."

Howard has refused to set a timeline on how long Australian troops might remain in East Timor, but New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark said Saturday foreign forces may need to remain on the island for up to a year.

Australian troops have evacuated 276 Australians and other foreign nationals from East Timor since the fighting began, the defense department said.